Law Commons^™

Class Of 2009 Incoming Il Law Students, St. Mary's University School Of Law, St. Mary's University School Of Law

Incoming 1L Photos (Facebooks)

Photographs of incoming law students for the St. Mary’s University School of Law, class of 2009

Lawnotes, The St. Mary's University School Of Law Newsletter, St. Mary's University School Of Law

Law Notes

No abstract provided.

Staying Open: How Restricting Venue In Texas's Judicial Bypass Cases Would Hurt Minors And Violate The Constitution., Shelia Cheaney, Laura Smith

The Scholar: St. Mary's Law Review on Race and Social Justice

The open venue provision is necessary to protect a minor’s constitutional right to have an abortion. Under the open venue provision, a minor may petition from any county in Texas for a judicial bypass to keep her abortion private. Proposed legislation, such as Texas House Bill 1212, threatens that right by restricting a minor from obtaining a judicial bypass only from the county of her residence. In Planned Parenthood of Central Missouri v. Danforth, the United States Supreme Court held it was constitutional for states to require a minor to obtain parental consent in order to obtain an abortion. Bellotti …

Town Of Castle Rock V. Gonzales: A Hindrance In Domestic Violence Policy Reform And Victory For The Institution Of Male Dominance., Vi T. Vu

The Scholar: St. Mary's Law Review on Race and Social Justice

Abstract Forthcoming.

Dealing With A Depressed Workforce: Are American Employers Doing Enough To Support The Mental Health Challenges Affecting Today's Employees., Charity Felts

The Scholar: St. Mary's Law Review on Race and Social Justice

This comment focuses on what American employers should be doing to recognize and deal with an employee population afflicted by mental illness. Americans suffer from a variety of mental health challenges. The symptoms of these mental illnesses vary from mild to severe. Often, if left untreated, these challenges can turn into full blown mental disorders. Employers typically ignore these issues due to high employee turnover rate and lack of employee loyalty. The cost attributable to mental illness every year is twenty-three billion dollars. However, when calculating the indirect costs like loss of productivity and absenteeism, the actual cost reaches $249 …

A Pregnant Teenager's Right To Education In Texas., Amber Hausenfluck

The Scholar: St. Mary's Law Review on Race and Social Justice

Texas must work to better protect the legal rights of pregnant teenagers within its school districts. Without statewide requirements to ensure the elimination of pregnancy discrimination against students, school districts’ policies vary greatly and often include policies counter to the protections afforded both in Title IX and the Texas Education Code. Title IX requires the choice to attend an alternative school be completely voluntary. However, upon inspection, many Texas schools seem to violate this requirement by compelling or pressuring pregnant students to attend alternative education programs instead of adequately informing them of their educational options. The Texas Education Code guarantees …

Too Broke To Hire An Attorney - How To Conduct Basic Legal Research In A Law Library., Michael P. Forrest, Mark Martinez Jr.

The Scholar: St. Mary's Law Review on Race and Social Justice

Abstract Forthcoming.

Shifting From Race To Ethnicity In Higher Education., Pratheep Sevanthinathan

The Scholar: St. Mary's Law Review on Race and Social Justice

Abstract Forthcoming.

Lawnotes, The St. Mary's University School Of Law Newsletter, St. Mary's University School Of Law

Law Notes

No abstract provided.

Down And Out In San Antonio: The Constitutionality Of San Antonio's Anti-Homeless Ordinances., Justin Cook

The Scholar: St. Mary's Law Review on Race and Social Justice

This comment addresses the constitutionality of two San Antonio anti-homeless ordinances which prohibit camping in public and aggressive panhandling. The population of San Antonio, Texas grows at a rapid rate. Mayor Ed Garza established a task force to address the homelessness problem in San Antonio. This task force developed a ten-year plan to end homelessness in the city. The plan proposed by the year 2014 all homeless individuals would have alternatives and access to safe, decent, and affordable housing as well as resources and support to sustain housing. However, not long after approving the proposal, San Antonio’s City Council presented …

Refusal Clauses & Pro-Life Pharmacists: How Can We Protect Ourselves From Them., Minh N. Nguyen

The Scholar: St. Mary's Law Review on Race and Social Justice

The decades long pro-life and pro-choice debate recently broadened to now include controversy over reproductive contraception. This controversy stems from doctors refusing to participate in abortion procedures and other healthcare providers, such as pharmacists, declining to fill prescriptions for oral and emergency contraceptives. Pharmacists all over the United States claim religious and moral grounds for refusing to fill prescriptions from doctors and hospitals. This religious fundamentalism creates more than a minor inconvenience for women. The oral and emergency contraceptives in question include birth control pills and the morning after pill, both of which inhibit a woman’s ability to get pregnant. …

Texas Rangers Resurrected: Immigration Proposals After September 11th., Alyssa Garcia Perez

The Scholar: St. Mary's Law Review on Race and Social Justice

Abstract Forthcoming.

What About Our Future - The Chaos That Is The Texas School Finance System., Brian Stork

The Scholar: St. Mary's Law Review on Race and Social Justice

The current school finance system has failed to address the changing demographics of the state and has serious, long lasting negative effects on disadvantaged students by not providing better funding, services, or facilities. None of the attempts made to fix this glaring problem of inequity within the Texas school finance system has done anything besides point out these blatant flaws and patchwork approach to solving them. Judge Dietz concluded that since the current school finance system does not properly meet the general diffusion of knowledge requirement proscribed by Article VII, Section 1 of the Texas Constitution, it is inadequate and …

Racial Profiling In Texas Department Of Public Safety Traffic Stops: Race Aware Or Race Benign., Steven R. Wolfson

The Scholar: St. Mary's Law Review on Race and Social Justice

It is illegal for Texas law enforcement agencies to racially profile people. However, Texas continues to deal with racial profiling among law enforcement officers. This article concerns the right to travel, unmolested by state action based upon race or ethnicity. Since passing the Fourteenth Amendment and its Equal Protection Clause, our legal system under-includes, and outright excludes, certain groups of people from its promise. Such racial disparities have lived in the United States Constitution since the authors drafted the three-fifths compromise at its inception. When considering the criminality of a group of people and the overpopulation in state prisons, many …

Whose Job Is It Anyway?: Governmental Obligations Created By The Human Right To Water, Amy Hardberger

Faculty Articles

The importance of water is difficult to quantify, but because it is necessary for survival, it deserves recognition as a human right. Although the right to water has received considerable attention, it has not yet achieved the status of customary international law.

If the human right to water becomes an accepted norm of international law, there could be differing consequences for governments. A human right is enforceable by a citizen against her government by investigating intragovernmental responsibilities in different contexts, including times of peace and more complicated relationships, such as those created in times of conflict or belligerent occupation. Different …

Life In The Early Days Of Lawyer Advertising: Personal Recollections Of A Bates Baby, Gerald S. Reamey

Faculty Articles

The Supreme Court decision in Bates v. State Bar of Arizona ruled that lawyer advertising is commercial speech subject to First Amendment protection. However, a Texas disciplinary statute provided that “a lawyer shall not publicize himself, his partner, or associate…through newspaper or magazine advertisements, radio or television announcements…or other means of commercial publicity.” Despite being clearly unconstitutional, the Texas statute remained law for five years. Finally, responding to Bates in September 1977, the Texas State Bar Board of Directors adopted an official statement which allowed for limited advertising in newspapers, and only to the extent which was provided for by …

Texas Annual Survey: Securities Regulation, George Lee Flint Jr

Faculty Articles

The definitions, especially those relating to the issues of what constitutes a security, who may recover, and the territorial reach, determine the scope of the securities acts. The Fifth Circuit issued one decision concerning standing to sue under section 11 of the Securities Act of 1933.

The State Securities Board amended its form for public information charges and billing detail to reflect current fees for public information established by the Texas Building and Procedures Commission. The Board adopted new rules reorganizing the exemption for sales to financial institutions and certain institutional investors under the Texas Securities Act (“TSA”) and reconsidered …

Terrorism Law, Jeffrey F. Addicott

Faculty Articles

The hard reality is that the United States has declared war on a tactic—terror. The nation must accept lawful force as the only tool that will allow us to win the war against our enemy. The “War on Terror” is unlike anything the people of the United States have seen or fought before. The issue is: Are we at war, or is this simply a metaphor like the “war on drugs” or the “war on poverty?” The Act of Congress signed by President George W. Bush was the first legal document that began to answer this inquiry. The 2006 Military …

Americans Abroad: International Educational Programs And Tort Liability, Vincent R. Johnson

Faculty Articles

In recent decades, the number of foreign programs operated by American colleges and universities has greatly expanded. Until recently, there were few reported cases involving claims arising from foreign educational ventures. However, the increase in international study abroad programs has been paralleled by an increase in tort claims. Additionally, because of the tendency of tort cases to be settled, the number of unreported cases, based on harm to students participating in study abroad programs, may be considerably larger than what appears in legal research databases.

Given the high cost of potential litigation, a program provider has no choice but to …

Chinese Law And Legal Research (Book Review), Chenglin Liu

Faculty Articles

Mr. Wei Luo has taken up the enormous challenge of establishing a subject-arrangement codification system and a uniform legal citation standard for China. Mr. Luo’s unique exposure to the Chinese legal system and law making process has made him the ideal scholar to address Chinese legal research. As a result of a five-year-long endeavor to direct these codification and legal citation projects, Mr. Luo has published his outstanding volume Chinese Law and Chinese Legal Research.

As the title of the book indicates, Mr. Luo’s work has gone far beyond the scope of an ordinary research guide or annotated bibliography. He …

Engaged Surrender In The Void: Post-Secularist "Human" Rights Discourse And Muslim Feminists [Sic], Emily A. Hartigan

Faculty Articles

Human rights discourse is inherently multicultural, and multicultural discourse is messy. The reality of discourse on the post-secular manifests in various books and websites. This manifestation has led to religion resurfacing in the public realm. At some level, the academy that poses as secular is a small and politically inconsequential voice in the national and international arena. Among the restrictions that secular discourse would attempt to dictate are those suggested in projects to re-enchant a world that has become spiritually, epistemically, politically, and perhaps humanly desiccated by the relegation of talk of the sacred to the private realm.

The purely …

The Limits Of Limiting Liability In The Battle Of The Forms: U.C.C. Section 2-207 And The “Material Alteration” Inquiry, Colin P. Marks

Faculty Articles

The “surprise or hardship” approach to UCC section 2-207 is the approach courts should use to determine the applicability of liability clauses in the battle of the forms. However, courts use varying approaches to decide whether clauses limiting liability materially alter the contract under UCC section 2-207. Courts have adopted three different approaches: (1) the per se material alternation approach; (2) the per se not material alternation approach; and (3) the “surprise or hardship” approach.

The per se material alteration approach focuses on the surprise or hardship factors found in comment 4 of section 2-207; however, that approach is flawed …

Eastern Visions, Western Voices: A Sermon On Love In The Valley Of Law, John W. Teeter Jr

Faculty Articles

The transition from law student to seasoned attorney can be prolonged and stressful. The evolution can be painfully dispiriting, but there are ways to transform a potentially grueling struggle for sustenance into a genuine labor of love. The sources stem from divergent roots, both Eastern—Buddhist with pinches of Hindu—and Western—ranging from Platonic to perhaps the moronic. Eastern visions and Western voices may be a catalyst in spawning ideas on creating joy and fulfillment in the valley of law.

Moving from law student to practitioner is an odyssey, both perplexing and potentially fatal. Becoming a lawyer in fact as well as …

Criminal Procedure Rules Pending Public Comment, David A. Schlueter

Faculty Articles

No abstract provided.

The Misuse Of Religion In The Global War On Terrorism, Jeffrey F. Addicott

Faculty Articles

A brief review of human history reveals that various individuals, groups and nations have used religious dogma as a pretext to engage in aggression against others. As such, it is no surprise that the Islamic radicalism that fuels the Global War on Terrorism employs what it calls the “true” Moslem religion in order to cloak a lust for domination through despicable expressions of unlawful violence, primarily targeting innocent civilians.

On the other hand, when it comes to confronting the forces of al-Qa’eda-styled aggression, it is not surprising that democracies like the United States also employ religious ideology and symbolism to …

Overcorrecting The Purported Problem Of Taking Child Brides In Polygamist Marriages: The Texas Legislature Unconstitutionally Voids All Marriages By Texans Younger Than Sixteen And Criminalizes Parental Consent., Rosanne Piatt

St. Mary's Law Journal

In the 79th Regular Legislative Session, Texas lawmakers amended and added numerous provisions to both the Texas Family Code and Texas Penal Code relating to the status of marriage. One change was the inclusion in the Family Code of a section voiding a marriage if either party is younger than sixteen years of age. Additionally, legislators included criminal penalties to other laws relating to marriage. Specifically, parents are prohibited from giving consent to the marriages of parties under sixteen, but parents also face third-degree felony charges if they give consent. The legislature voided certain underage marriages in Texas due to …

Acquiring Separate Property On Credit: A Review And Proposed Revision Of Texas Marital Property Doctrine., James W. Paulsen

St. Mary's Law Journal

The character of property acquired on credit is one of the most vexing in Texas marital property law. The apparent black letter rule is that anything acquired by either spouse on credit during the marriage is community property, unless the creditor agrees at the outset to look only to separate property for repayment. The general rule follows naturally from a core principle of Texas law that everything owned by a married person is presumed community when the basic presumption is combined with the “inception of title” doctrine. In a credit transaction, the borrower acquires some legal right to the loan …

The Law Of Mediation In Texas., L. Wayne Scott

St. Mary's Law Journal

Abstract Forthcoming.

Standefer V. State: The Creation Of The Criminal Defendant's Diminished Right To A Trial By A Fair And Impartial Jury., Esperanza Guzman

St. Mary's Law Journal

In Texas, the right of an accused to have an impartial jury is firmly grounded in the voir dire process, the definitive goal of which is to empanel a fair and impartial jury. The right to a fair and impartial jury is bolstered by the voir dire examination. There have been large discrepancies over the types of questions which can be asked during the voir dire process. The court’s attempt to simplify the process of differentiating between proper and improper voir dire questions has “muddied the issue” for court participants and has resulted in the deprivation of a criminal defendant’s …

The Unable To Agree Requirement And Texas Condemnation Law: A Critical Analysis Of Hubenak V. San Jacinto Gas Transmission Co.., B. Tyler Milton

St. Mary's Law Journal

In Texas, the state constitution requires adequate compensation as a predicate to a taking of private property for a public use. Though an eminent domain cause of action has both a constitutional and statutory basis, the requirement of adequate or just compensation is premised on principles of natural equity and justice. Texas statutorily mandates that a condemner of land must, prior to the institution of a condemnation proceeding, plead and prove the two parties were “unable to agree” on the corresponding compensation due to the landowner. Texas courts interpreted this requirement in the condemnation statute to compel “good faith negotiations” …